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To: Lukasz; Atlantic Bridge

Isn't it the same situation like with Rammstein AFB in Germany?

I'm not sure whether German authorities have a right not to approve American attack launched from that base.


32 posted on 03/08/2006 8:32:18 AM PST by lizol (Liberal - a man with his mind open ... at both ends)
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To: lizol

The Americans are kept to inform us if they start any attacks from our soil. During the recent Iraq war there was a fierce discussion among the left in Germany if the -at then Schroeder- gouvernment should not interdict any use of German bases for acts of war associated with Iraq because we had nothing to do with it. Since NATO would have been torn to pieces in that case Schroeder abstained.

Anyway the Americans reacted quite sour on the German stance concerning the Iraq war and will reduce their deployment to something around 27.000 soldiers (compared to roundabout 300.000 during the cold war) until 2014 as far as I know. In the meantime they are that thinned out through the Iraq war that the German army, the Bundeswehr, has to guard their abandoned facilities. Not very impressing after all. This is a good development for everybody. The German public on one hand is not willing to be the "aircraft carrier" of the US anymore, the US on the other are not willing to spend bazillions of dollars in old Europe. This is one of the reasons why they start to deploy new bases in Romania or elsewhere. Besides - is there any planned deployment in Poland? Your country would be perfect since nobody's feelings in Europe are that close to America than those of the Poles.

Personally I do not think that is is very foresighted to take the Romanians to the cleaners. Such agreements are simply not fair. Not later than the Americans are not welcome anymore for reasons we do not know in the moment, the Romanian public will put immense pressure on its gouvernment and the other Europeans to get rid of the US deployment again. Maybe you can remember what happend in the late 80ties and eary 90ties on the Phillipines. The US had two really large bases there: Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base. The public did not accept the American presence anymore for various reasons. The Philippine Senate rejected an extension of the Military Bases Agreement and the bases were transferred to the Philippine government on November 26, 1991 (besides - it has nothing to do with the catastrophic erpution of Mt. Pinatubo in June 1991). The US had to leave although there was for sure great interest of the DoD to maintain the bases since they were the backbone to all US operations in South East Asia with their excellent infrastructure. Something like Ramstein in Europe today.


38 posted on 03/09/2006 12:08:10 AM PST by Atlantic Bridge (De omnibus dubitandum.)
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